1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of telecommunications. In particular, the present invention relates to a technique for selectively providing product placement and advertising to mobile terminals based on the location of the mobile terminals.
2. Description of the Related Art
In product placements, a particular product is intentionally included in a movie or television program. In conventional advertising, an advertisement is widely distributed in order to be seen or heard by the general public. Such techniques are only modestly effective in building general brand awareness. It is more desirable to target advertisements to customers who are known to have the inclination or potential to immediately purchase or make further inquiry about the product.
With the widespread use of the Internet, banner ads have generally come into use on websites, but they are inefficient and not particularly cost effective. Consequently, advertisers have begun to utilize the Internet for targeted advertising products and services.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,937,392 to Alberts, entitled “Banner Advertising Display System and Method With Frequency of Advertisement Control,” has attempted to alleviate the untargeted advertising problem by specifically targeting advertisements to users from a particular geographic location, etc.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,948,061, to Merriman et al, entitled “Method of Delivery, Targeting, and Measuring Advertising Over Networks,” discloses an arrangement for the targeting of the delivery of advertisements over the Internet based on the tracking of data with regard to individual users.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,974,451, to Simmons, entitled “System and Method for Distributing Bulletins to External Computers Accessing Wide Area Computer Networks,” targets advertising on the Internet based on a specific request for information from a user.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,933,811, to Angles et al, entitled “System and Method for Delivering Customized Advertisements Within Interactive Communication Systems,” delivers customized advertisements to users on the Internet based on consumer profiles of the users.
Lastly, U.S. Pat. No. 5,999,912, to Wodarz et al., discloses a dynamic advertising scheduling, display and tracking arrangement for the Internet. In the disclosed arrangement, advertisements are added to a requested web page in accordance with advertisement tag characteristics which include user based characteristics such as age, gender, language, etc., advertisement tag selection based on the time of day or number of times that the advertisement has been selected during a specific time period, etc.